I followed the link, which was a perfectly fine ad for a (different) moving company. I couldn't find anything mockworthy about it at all. And sure enough, I'd also gotten an email from PayPal saying that I'd received a $5 payment at my yousuckatcraigslist@gmail.com account (which is problematic, as I don't have a PayPal account with that address!).

Then it hit me: A while back I posted a Craigslist ad in which a company offered to flag competitor's ads for $5 each. The original post is here, and reproduced below:

Need Flagging? - $5

Tired of seeing spam ads? Your competitors got you down? No worries, with our service we will have ads removed within minutes! The process is very simple - just let us know the URL or posting title & section, send us a payment with PayPal, and the ad will be removed within 5-10 minutes (10 ads or more - 30 minutes). We can also do bulk removal at discounted rates.

1 ad - $5
5 ads - $20
25 ads - $50

Payments are made through PayPal, once payment is received the process is started immediately.

NuclearMosquito emailed this listing, saying: "Now I know in "this economy" (whatever that means), people are looking for new ways to make a quick buck. Somewhere along the line, someone will think, "Hey, I should charge people for an already free service! Maybe even one they can do themselves! Surely someone will fall for it." Sadly, they just might. This ad promises to flag other Craigslist ads for you. They even offer a discount for bulk flags! Just Paypal them $5 per flag, along with the URL of the ad you want flagged, and they're on the job. Now really, you have to wonder if the people that read this ad and think it's something wonderful don't notice the flag button, that they can click themselves, FOR FREE, in the corner of that very ad! The mind boggles."

Indeed it does. I should, of course, mention that this ad got flagged. I wonder if someone paid them to flag their own ad? I would have, just for the irony of it.

The person who emailed me must have googled for something related to "removing competitor's ads" [update: my search terms show one search for "how many times do you have to flag," one for "flag craigslist ads," and three for "craigslist flagger"] and found this post on the site -- and then completely missed the point of the post and thought that I provided this service!

In which I repost an ad that was posted on Craigslist, in which a company offered to delete competitor's posts for a $5 fee.

I do not provide this service. In fact, I was making fun of it, as I think it is slimy and disingenuous to pay to have someone delete a competitor's ad. (My website, You Suck at Craigslist, is devoted to mocking Craigslist ads.)

I do not have a Paypal account with that email address, so I have no way to accept or refund the payment you sent me. I suggest you find out whether PayPal has a way to cancel a transaction.

So I guess this answers a few questions. First of all, apparently people are willing to pay for a service they can provide for themselves. Second, apparently some people will resort to underhanded techniques such as flagging competitor's ads on Craiglist to give themselves an "advantage". Third, I bemoan the decline of reading comprehension.

Please -- if you find this even half as hilarious as I did, submit it to social networking sites (Twitter, Digg, etc) to help disseminate it. I've never asked for that kind of publicity before, but I think this is worth it: serendipity and stupid don't interact in this spectacular a fashion that often.

The money got sent via Paypal to yousuckatcraigslist@gmail.com, and PayPal notified me of the payment, but I don't have a PayPal account at that address.

I'm not going to take the money, but I'm also not going to knock myself out trying to figure out how to refund it to them. I figure if someone sends me unsolicited money for a service I (a) don't provide and (b) have no intention of providing, it's not my responsibility to figure out how to get the money refunded to them. If they just leave it there I'll eventually donate it to charity.

I suggest you set up a paypal tip-jar for just these occasions with your email address. If some dork is stupid enough to send you money and takes up even ten seconds of your precious time by doing so; should then forfeit his cash simply as a stupidity-charge. You will be duly compensated for the time it takes to respond to their inquiry notifying them of their dimwittedness--and should feel not the slightest guilt about it. It's like a donation for your kind tolerance.

I suggest you set up a paypal tip-jar for just these occasions with your email address. If some dork is stupid enough to send you money and takes up even ten seconds of your precious time by doing so; then he should then forfeit his cash simply as a stupidity-charge. You will be duly compensated for the time it takes to respond to their inquiry notifying them of their dimwittedness--and should feel not the slightest guilt about it. It's like a donation for your kind tolerance.

I tell people about this site too; and I don't think there is any ambiguity regarding what it does.

Oddly enough, my feller and I were just now having a discussion about how some people just don't bother to do proper research online - they just see something, click, and deal with the usually unwanted consequences later.

I've wondered about the origins of your subheading "Exactly what it says on the tin." Why did you write that? Who could possibly misinterpret "You Suck At Craigslist"? Who would need further explanation of what to expect from the site? Could it be any more explicit?